Replanting follows Osney felling

8:44am Monday 12th March 2007

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RESIDENTS on Osney Island, Oxford, have welcomed new willow trees after the city council's controversial felling last year.

In November, residents were infuriated when 11 diseased willows along the river bank in East Street were chopped down for safety reasons.

They said the trees should have been pollarded - heavily pruned back - instead, and used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a council report showing six of the trees were considered to be in "reasonable health".

On Saturday, residents joined Lord Mayor Jim Campbell and staff from the parks department to plant 11 white willows along the towpath beside the river.

The replanting followed an Osney Island Residents' Association survey of every house on the island which revealed that 98 per cent wanted white willows to be planted.

Association spokesman Richard Thurston said: "It's exciting to get our trees back, and residents helped council staff to plant them.

"We hope this will be an opportunity to build bridges with the council, and would like to run a programme whereby residents can adopt a tree and help with its maintenance.

"The street now looks much better when you walk over Osney Bridge. The council has apologised, but some people are still cross about what happened in the first place.

"There are still questions to be answered by the council over this. I submitted 12 questions to council leaders last month, and I am still waiting for proper answers.

"The council has apologised for communication failures, but not for cutting the trees down in the first place."

Last month, seven recommendations by the environment scrutiny committee regarding the case were largely accepted by the council executive board. These included preparing a tree management policy.